MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews talked about his experience interviewing East Germans after the collapse of the Berlin Wall nearly 25 years ago on Friday’s “Hardball” and said that it showed him that systems fail “when they fail to deliver to the true believers” and therefore, “the system of free markets still has to deliver.”

Matthews said, “they [East Germans] told of how the factory manager and the school principal, the true believers of the system were treated the worst…what struck me then and what occurs to me now is how systems fail, it’s when they fail to deliver to the true believers, when they screw the very people on whom society most depends. As I said, the factory manager, the school principal. Because when you fail the people who make society work, you make the system unworkable. When the nurses start heading west, you know you’re in trouble. And that’s when the Berlin Wall fell. When the Iron Curtain became irrelevant, when the communists were called on their promises and found [it] short.”

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He concluded “people will support a system if it repays their loyalty with respect, economic respect. When it no longer does, look out. We in our country of freedom should never forget this lesson, because with all of their good values, the system of free markets still has to deliver for the people, especially for those who trust it most.”